1. Opener:
Is there a difference between love and attachment?
How could one’s very first experiences with others affect their ability to form relationships later in life?

2. ATTACHMENT THEORY
CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 2014

3. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
According to Maslow, one must have physical needs met, and safety needs met, before one can try working on love.

4. Attachment Theory Harry Harlow

5. Attachment Theory John Bowlby
Bowlby: English Psychologist
Commissioned by WHO in 1948 to research institutional deprivation…
Orphans and difficulty in forming relationships
Children in hospitals

6. Attachment Theory John Bowlby
Premise: Human infants are biologically predisposed to develop attachment to parent to increase the likelihood of survival
Konrad Lorenz and
Imprinting

7. Imprinting

8. Attachment Theory John Bowlby
Attachment quality is reflected in the extent to which the presence of the parent allows the child to feel comfortable enough to explore the environment
Early parent-child attachment quality has long-term effects on child development and behavior

9. Attachment Theory
Attachment does not have to be reciprocal.  One person may have an attachment with an individual which is not shared. 
Attachment is characterized by specific behaviors in children, such as seeking proximity with the attachment figure when upset or threatened (Bowlby, 1969).

10. Attachment Theory
John Bowlby (1958) considered the importance of the child’s relationship with their mother in terms of their social, emotional and cognitive development. 
Looked at link between early infant separations with the mother and later maladjustment.
Bowlby defined attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings” (1969, p.194).

11. Attachment Theory It’s innate (Lorenz & Harlow offer support)
It has a critical time period to develop (at least one primary attachment figure early in life)
Child develops internal working model of world
A cognitive schema
If attachment is not formed, social-emotional problems may develop later in life

12. Attachment Theory
Internal working model: child forms internal mental representations of attachment relationships of their first attachment relationship
Motivation for attachment is biological, but process is based on experience
The cognitive schema of attachment:
Ideas about attachment figures and what to expect of them
Ideas about self
Ideas of how self and others relate

13. Attachment Theory
Babies seek proximity to mother and react with anxiety to separation from her.” (Bowlby, 1973)
It’s emotional: negative emotional influences later life if attachment is not formed within critical time period (birth to age 2 years old) (LO 6)
It’s universal: evolutionary advantages for babies to bound with mothers
It does not have to be the mother, but Bowlby felt needed to be one person
The central theme of attachment theory is that mothers who are available and responsive to their infant's needs establish a sense of security.
The infant knows that the caregiver is dependable, which creates a secure base for the child to then explore the world & establishes a bases for future relationships (Trust)

14. Mary Ainsworth (1970)
Controlled observation of children’s attachment behavior using the ‘Strange Situation Classification’ (SSC):
Mother leaves child in unfamiliar environment
Child is approached by stranger
Mother returns
Looks at separation protest, stranger anxiety and reunion behavior

15. Factors that promote insecure attachment:
Abandonment & deprivation in the first two years of life
Parenting that is abusive, neglectful, or erratic
Childs own temperament creates a feedback loop
Stressful circumstances of the family

16. Ainsworth

17. Ainsworth

18. Secure Avoidant Resistant Primary Carer’s Behaviour Towards Child
Child’s ‘Working Model’ of Itself
Positive & Loved
Unloved & Rejected
Angry & Confused
Secure
Avoidant
Resistant